Reviews And Other Press

Reviews And Other Press:

MALT RIVER SHARES SCOOP ON COCONUT BEER-BATTERED SHRIMP
Wednesday, December 11, 1996 - Times Union

NOTES ON NAPKINS
Sunday, October 27, 1996 - Times Union

GOING WITH THE FLOW BREW PUBS ARE A GROWING PRESENCE IN THE CAPITAL REGION
Thursday, July 11, 1996 - Times Union

MALT RIVER SHARES SCOOP ON COCONUT BEER-BATTERED SHRIMP
(Wednesday, December 11, 1996 - Times Union)
MICHAEL LOPEZ Staff writer

DEAR CHEFS SECRETS: We recently had a great appetizer at the new Malt River Brewing Co. in the Latham Circle Mall. It was called coconut shrimp and it was served with a tangy sauce. I would love to make it for the holidays! -- V.M. FRANCE, Latham

DEAR V.M.: The coconut beer-battered shrimp is part of Malt River's American regional menu, with dishes like grilled vegetable quesadillas and gumbo, served by head chef Thomas A. Kachris.

Malt River is a microbrewery so, like the food, the beer also is made here. The latest: Winter Warmer, brewed with cinnamon and whole vanilla bean.

A couple of hints about the shrimp recipe: don't attempt to cook in a frying pan; only an electric wok or deep fryer will provide a consistent temperature. Otherwise, the coconut could burn and the shrimp will cook unevenly in a shallow pan.

Also, Kachris said freezing the raw shrimp after they've been battered will make for easier handling when you're ready to cook. Shrimp can be refrigerated or frozen up to about an hour before frying. Also, they'll keep well frozen for as long as two weeks if
properly stored.

COCONUT BEER-BATTERED SHRIMP (Serves six to eight)

SHRIMP:
Twenty-four raw shrimp
Eight cups shredded coconut
Oil for frying

BEER BATTER:
Twelve ounces beer
One and one-half cups flour
One teaspoon baking powder
One teaspoon salt

DIPPING SAUCE:
Ten ounces peach pie filling (if chunky, blend in food processor)
Twelve ounces apricot preserves
Three-quarters teaspoon cayenne pepper
One-half cup soy sauce
One-half teaspoon Tabasco sauce

Peel, devein and butterfly shrimp, slicing them as deeply as possible. Prepare the beer batter by combining all ingredients. Lightly dust the shrimp with flour, dip them into the batter and coat with the coconut. Lay flat on a plate or baking sheet and place them in the freezer. Prepare the dipping sauce by combining all ingredients and mixing well with food processor.

Using a wok or deep frier, fry shrimp at 350 until golden brown. Fry just six to eight shrimp at a time. (Kachris recommends using peanut oil.) Pour sauce onto a plate and arrange shrimp around it for dipping.

NOTES ON NAPKINS
(Sunday, October 27, 1996 - Times Union)
William M. Dowd

The Malt River Brewing Co. of Latham Circle Mall finished with the highest overall rating among local participants in the recent Canterbury Foundation Brewfest in Albany's Washington Park.

. . . Who spends more money on dining out, baby boomers or Generation Xers? It's the boomers, people born between 1946 and 1964, according to the National Restaurant Association. The trade group says the Xers eat out more often, but the boomers spend more, based on an analysis of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' Consumer Expenditure Survey. (All statistics are from 1994, the latest full-year numbers available.)

The survey shows boomers spend 47.7 percent of their food budget away from home, the Xers just 22.3 percent. Survey findings also revealed the typical U.S. household spent an average of $679 per person on food away from home in 1994, up from $666 in 1993. Households with a husband and wife spent $981 per capita on food away from home, more than 64 percent higher than the $596 per capita spent by families with children.

GOING WITH THE FLOW BREW PUBS ARE A GROWING PRESENCE IN THE CAPITAL REGION
(Thursday, July 11, 1996 - Times Union)
WILLIAM M. DOWD Associate Editor

The tap is nearly wide open in the gradual brew pubbing of the Capital Region.

The fourth of five such establishments planned for the area -- the Big House Brewing Company in Albany -- has scheduled its official ribbon-cutting ceremony for Friday, July 19. The Malt River Brewing Co. at the Latham Circle Mall recently had its official grand opening gala after several weeks of doing steady business just by quietly opening its doors.

They join the Troy Pub & Brewery, which opened three years ago as Brown & Moran before changing to the current name, and the Original Saratoga Springs Brew Pub, which opened just after Thanksgiving last year.

Next up: The Van Dyke in Schenectady. That will be a reincarnation of the longtime classic jazz restaurant in the historic Stockade neighborhood, with a rough completion date of the fourth quarter of the year.

Brew pubs are most assuredly the ``in'' thing in many parts of the country, and for a change this area is not lagging behind a trend.

Some statistics are in order:

There are 1,034 microbreweries, brew pubs and regional specialty breweries in North America, with 927 of them in the United States, according to the American Brewers Association (ABA), a trade industry group in Boulder, Colo. Last year alone, 196 brew pubs and 91 microbreweries opened.

Of that number, there are 553 true brew pubs in the U.S., using definitions from the association's Institute for Brewing Studies. Each of the five Capital Region establishments fits that category.

Financially, brew pubs are million-dollar investments in a hospitality industry niche in which a few hundred thousand dollars can get a standard restaurant started.

Aesthetically, they can be anything from barroom basic to plush restaurants.

Technically, they are restaurant-breweries that sell the majority of their beer on site, says Jim Neighbors, administrator of the ABA'S Institute for Brewing Studies.

In other words, no matter how many labels your local watering hole carries -- the ones here have come up with anywhere from four to 10 each -- if it doesn't make its own beer and sell food, it doesn't qualify as a true brew pub.

Of course, Neighbors concedes, ``a business can basically call itself anything it wants, so it's sometimes hard for the public to distinguish the precise differences. But there truly are differences.''

And those differences throw the topic into debate worthy of, well, being held over a few brews. Historic purists will point out that breweries abounded in this area for more than a century, and various levels of resuscitation have taken place right into modern
times -- including William Newman's valiant but star-crossed effort -- to revive the local craft brewing industry even before these new efforts sprang up.

The success rate of brew pubs is better than that of other types of restaurants, which have a mortality rate of 60 percent or higher in some areas. The Institute for Brewing Studies puts failure rates for U.S. brew pubs at just one in seven. Because of that, more and more people are willing to take the plunge. Not counting the Troy brew pub, that's a plunge in excess of $5 million for the four newest establishments here.

Can the Capital Region population support five such enterprises?

The investors and architects creating these new spaces obviously think so.

A comment from Stephen J. Waite, the Albany attorney behind the Big House project -- at Sheridan and North Pearl across from Cap Rep in Albany -- is typical of the local attitude:

``Some people say, `Won't all that competition hurt?' I don't see it as bad competition. I think it will help create a certain market for this type of restaurant. We'll all benefit from that.''

Peter Findley, one of the owners of the Troy Pub, tends to agree with the idea of a community effect. ``And it's certainly not a fad. We've been here since February of '93 and have been able to build a solid following.''

One bit of evidence of behind-the-scenes community spirit: Findley says he loaned grain to the Albany brewing operation for a starter batch.

Marc Weiss, owner of Malt River, is finding the early going at his upscale establishment very encouraging.

``Friday and Saturday nights were packed right from the start'' before the grand opening, he said. ``We're very confident we're on the right track.''

This is the first brewery or restaurant project for Weiss, son of Latham Circle Mall owner Eugene Weiss (``which makes no difference; I still pay rent,'' Marc notes).

The men who make the brews at the places already in operation are an eclectic lot.

Blair Potts, Saratoga brewmaster, has been at the game for 17 years at various East Coast breweries, so he's more of a career purist.

Michael Duer, Troy's brewmaster, is a former state microbiologist. As Lindley notes, ``You find all sorts of backgrounds among brewmasters. It's a relatively simple
process, but you need a variety of skills. Michael specialized in Lyme disease research with the state, and that means paying attention to hygiene and contamination control. And one of the best brewmasters I know of is a plumber, which comes in handy when you're dealing with all the tubing and pressures and so on.''

Gary ``Goose'' Gosselin is Malt River's brewmaster. His resume, after earning a B.A. in philosophy from the University of Massachusetts, includes work with the Boston Beer Works opposite famous Fenway Park in Boston, and at Union Station in
Providence, R.I. Gosselin started brewing two months before Malt River's doors opened, dipping into the 50,000 pounds of grain stored in the large silo obvious from the mall parking lot.

What sets the successful brew pubs apart from most taverns or restaurants is that they are what the industry calls ``destination spots'' -- places that offer full-scale dining along with the specialty beers and ales, and an ambiance that by itself or
coupled with entertainment makes it conducive to spending an entire evening there rather than just an hour or so before heading off to another spot.

That's why most brew pubs offer some sort of live music on some nights.

Of course, the American penchant for going against the grain may have something to do with this new phase in fermenting it. As co-authors Bruce Aidells and Denis Kelly put it in their new book ``Real Beer and Good Eats: The Rebirth of America's Beer and Food Traditions'' :

``Just as small winemakers started a wine revolution a few years ago, hundreds of craft brewers all over the United States these days are making flavorful ales and lagers that bear little resemblance to the beers from the huge national breweries.
These new brewers are part of a revolt against the bland and standardized products that have dominated our national life for so much of this century.''

Further evidence that this resurgence in craft brewing may be just the start of something big is the emergence of vintner/brewer operations making both wine and beer. And that's not limited to the specialty beer-oriented Pacific Northwest, where most brewing fads seem to begin.

The new Cobblestone Winery & Brewery in Huntington Station, Long Island, for example, is one of the first combined operations in the nation -- and certainly first in the state -- to be built from the ground up in one location and operated under one
roof, according to Wine Business Monthly magazine.

The Suffolk County winery, established last November, is in full swing and the brewery will begin turning out three types of beer this summer.

But in the end, any brew pub needs good food to go along with good specialty beers and ales to be successful. And in a restaurant market like the Capital Region known for being, to put it nicely, ultra-frugal, that's what will make or break these places, assuming the brews and the entertainment are maintained at acceptable levels.

``Today's restaurant patron assigns a higher value to menu items that are noticeably fresher and more flavorful than their mass-produced counterparts,'' says Herman Cain, president of the National Restaurant Association.

``Consumers are insisting on getting a taste that's as close to homemade as possible for their dining-out dollar. Why shouldn't they demand a home-grown beer as well?''

With that in mind, your humble food-taster visited the existing brew pubs to assess the offerings. The findings are in the accompanying set of reviews. William M. Dowd's regular ``Dinner Date'' restaurant reviews appear in the Sunday Times Union.